High Expectations of New Students met by Khipu and Exinda

Faced with increasing bandwidth demands, Royal Holloway, University of London chooses Exinda to deliver quality broadband experience for halls of residence. Students in halls of residence at Royal Holloway, University of London are enjoying a quality bandwidth experience thanks to superior traffic shaping delivered by Exinda, a leading global supplier of WAN optimization and Internet traffic control solutions. Royal Holloway has 10,000 students and 1,800 staff, has multiple 1GB links into JANET, the private UK government-funded computer network dedicated to research and education. Separate links are used by staff and educational resources and by students within halls of residence.

However, the student halls link was suffering from congestion due to the heavy demands placed on it by students. “It’s important to deliver quality bandwidth to ensure students enjoy a broadband experience which is at least comparable to what they experience at home, and ideally better.” explains Nigel Rata, Infrastructure Manager on the IT Service Delivery Team at Royal Holloway. “One of the first things new students do when they enter halls is run a speed test on the network, so we are very aware that speedy access is a priority for them and impacts on their levels of satisfaction. “We already had traffic shaping through Blue Coat PacketShaper, but the system wasn’t capable of meeting the growing challenge. It was rated as 1GB, but realistically was only capable of handling 700MB. We needed something with a faster management interface, especially when reaching operational parameters, and which isn’t limited as to what it can do with dynamic partitions and slicing up bandwidth.” Following a recommendation from Khipu Networks Ltd, the college tested and deployed a pair of Exinda 8760s on the student halls link during September 2012. “The Exinda solution does not suffer the limitations of PacketShaper,” explains David Spence of Khipu Networks. “It immediately impressed the team at Royal Holloway as it does the job well without the need for constant adjustment. They are also impressed with the level of insight they are now getting.” “The level of detail is exactly what we wanted,” continues Nigel Rata. “We are particularly pleased with the high level of insight we are receiving around what traffic is being consumed, and the amount of bandwidth used for streaming media. We currently have peak loads of 3,500 students using the network.”

Moving forwards, the long-term plan is to deploy Exinda solutions across more of the links to JANET. Royal Holloway is also considering using Exinda to shape P2P type traffic as a part of its copyright infringement policy in order to accurately categorise applications, even if the applications are encrypted. Royal Holloway had originally budgeted to replace its existing solution in the following financial year, but with the pressure of student expectations, the procurement was brought forward. Talking about the deployment Karl Barton, Exinda’s Vice President of Sales – EMEA said, “Education is a sector with particularly critical requirements for networking efficiency, which often sees a heavy degree of crossover between business and recreational usage. This is clearly illustrated in the case of Royal Holloway. In response to these increasing requirements, Exinda has developed a range of solutions for education. It’s pleasing to see that the Exinda solution used at the college is not only delivering on its primary function, but is also being appreciated for its ‘hands-off’ qualities.”

About Exinda®

Exinda is a leading global supplier of WAN optimization and Internet traffic control solutions. Exinda enables organizations to assure a predictable user experience for strategic business applications through policy-based WAN optimization and Internet Control that intelligently allocate network bandwidth and optimize traffic based on the priorities of the business. The company has helped more than 2,500 organizations in over 80 countries worldwide assure application performance, improve the end-user experience, contain recreational applications and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive.

For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

About Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway is one of the UK’s leading universities. We have a distinguished history of world-changing research and innovative teaching, with an international outlook. Our close-knit community enables students to benefit from a personalised experience, with staff collaborating across facilities to enhance health, science, culture and security on a global scale. Set in 135 acres of parkland in Surrey, our campus is recognised as one of the most beautiful in the world, and the pioneering spirit of our founders continues to inspire teaching and research today.

About Khipu Networks

Khipu Networks are a Cyber Security Solutions provider who have a large presence within the Education Sector, providing Network Access, Visibility and Control solutions. With over 10 years’ experience and 400+ Education customer deployments, we have specialist expertise in meeting the challenges when providing an open, flexible but secure network environment to students, staff and visitors.

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